Academy award-winning screenwriter Frank Pierson, who recently served as the 31st president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, died Sunday evening at Cedars Sinai hospital, according to his manager Susan Landau. He was 87. Pierson, who won his Oscar in 1976 for his "Dog Day Afternoon"screenplay, spent many years of his career in service to the Hollywood organizations that made him a success. He served as the president of the Writers Guild of America for two distinct terms, taught at the Sundance Institute, was an adjunct professor at USC's film school and was the artistic director of the American Film Institute.

One day in 1962, the Hollywood legend Darryl F. Zanuck turned to his 27-year-old son, Richard, seeking advice. Whom, the elder Zanuck asked, should he appoint head of production of 20th Century Fox, which had fallen on hard times and was losing millions on the problem-plagued "Cleopatra" starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Richard Zanuck gave his father -- a co-founder of Fox - a piece of paper with a single word on it: Me. Dad took his son's recommendation and, over the next five decades, Richard Zanuck emerged from the shadow of his father at the studio and eventually became an Oscar-winning independent producer of such films as "Jaws," which ushered in the modern blockbuster era. He followed with well-regarded films such as "The Verdict," and "Driving Miss Daisy.

The Oscars are going to sound a lot different this year, as producers Richard and Lili Fini Zanuck try to "contemporize" the music with the help of co-musical directors Burt Bacharach and Don Was. How different?

Chasen's, once the beloved haunt of movie stars, presidents, tycoons and famous writers, could soon make a comeback. The West Hollywood restaurant, which closed in April 1995 after 58 years, may reopen within three months at a new location in Beverly Hills.

David Brown, the former 20th Century Fox executive who partnered with Richard Zanuck in the early 1970s and produced the blockbuster hit "Jaws," as well as "The Verdict" and "Cocoon" before launching a solo career as a film and theatrical producer, has died. He was 93. Brown, the husband of former Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown, died Monday at his home in New York City after a long illness, said Donna Lagani, senior vice president and publishing director of Cosmopolitan. As half of the Zanuck-Brown film producing team in the 1970s and '80s, Brown's other credits include films such as "The Sugarland Express" (Steven Spielberg's first theatrical feature)

The movie moguls were tough men who ruled their studios with an iron fist ? but there was a method to their madness. These men created cinematic magic during the golden age of Hollywood. The legacies of these films and their stars have continued over the decades long after the studio system disappeared. Turner Classic Movies' ambitious seven-part documentary series, "Moguls & Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood," which begins Monday evening, explores the colorful lives and careers of the major moguls including Louis B. Mayer at MGM; Jack, Sam and Harry Warner of Warner Bros.